


Arthur the Softest Prince

by R00bs_Teacup



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Modern Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 11:58:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11252703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/pseuds/R00bs_Teacup
Summary: Gwen is angry, Arthur works out how to fix it, Merlin is Merlin and takes pictures





	Arthur the Softest Prince

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/gifts).



> I wrote this royal au for Glim ages ago and then forgot about it and just found it and she gave me the awesomest fic this morning so!

Arthur’s not entirely sure how he ends up arguing with Gwenevere. They argue a lot, she’ll tell him when she thinks he’s wrong or should do differently, do better. She stands up to him and presents him with information and forces him to look at things in new and difficult ways. She’s his advisor and his confident, she always argues with him, it makes her invaluable. This time is a little different, though. He’d just asked a small thing of her, just a little favour, and she’d been snappish, so he’d asked why and he’d got a rather heated answer and she’s still shouting at him, five minutes later, hair coming loose from it’s neat up-do, curling around her face. Arthur, who hasn’t been paying attention since the shouting began, can’t help smiling. 

 

“If you weren’t a royal twat I’d slap that smile off your face!” Gwen shouts, finger held trembling in warning and threat. 

 

“Sorry,” Arthur mumbles, trying to work out what’s up. “So, you’re angry with me because I… treat you as a friend?”

 

“You’re the prince of bloody England,” Gwen says, sounding tired now (though still angry). “You might treat me as a friend, but I never have the luxury of  _ being _ anything but your employee, and when you expect your employees to do duty of a friend, it crosses a line.”

 

“Right,” Arthur says, stung. She’s already called him arrogant, and rude. Though, those had come with a litany of titles peppered through the next angry outburst. 

 

“I’m not some character in a story book, or some perfect human being. I am competent and professional, but you ask too much. I don’t want to be your confident, or your bloody advice column or shoulder to cry on. I want more from the world than that. I want to be in love, and to have a flat, and a, a, a bookshelf and a dog and go food shopping and hold my girlfriend’s hand.”

 

“And… I am stopping that,” Arthur says, still a little baffled and hurt because they had been friends. Or he’d thought so. He frowns. There is definitely something he’s missing here.

 

“No. Yes. I work… and then you ask things like this of me and I can’t say no,” Gwen says, frustration and exasperation bleeding through again, tightening her back up to anger. “You pay me. You’re going to rule the entire sodding country. I can’t just say no.”

 

“Oh,” Arthur says. “What if I tell you that you can say ‘no’?”

 

“That… would be a start, yes,” Gwen says. 

 

“Why didn’t you just say something?” Arthur asks. 

 

“You shouldn’t need to be told to think of other people,” Gwen says, the kind of disgust he hasn’t seen in her since he was a teenager and making a twat of himself coming up, now. “You should be more aware than anyone about how easy it is for you to take advantage of people, and take every care not to.”

 

“Come to dinner,” Arthur says, groping around for the way to fix this. “With me. In a… non-work capacity. We’ll have a moratorium on work talk. Oh! Come to dinner with Merlin and I, he has a moratorium on business matters at the dinner table. Yes? Oh, and you can say no.”

 

“No, I’m going home, to have dinner with my girlfriend.”

 

“And the bookshelf and the dog,” Arthur says, getting the hang of this. He smiles, and Gwen closes her eyes, searching for patience. He knows that expression. “Perhaps you might bring the girlfriend. And perhaps another evening.”

 

Gwen still looks cross. Arthur considers for a bit, as she searches for what emotion to put into her next outburst. Merlin likes dogs. He likes the corgis, anyway. 

 

“You might extend the invitation to your dog, too, if you so please. Not, perhaps, the bookshelf, however. That would make a decidedly odd dinner guest. Have you read the book about the man who thought his wife was a hat?” Arthur says. It looks like he’s still not endeared himself. He sighs, and thinks, pinching the bridge of his nose, running everything he’s learnt about protocol and charming people and manners, and then everything he’s unlearnt about that from Merlin, and everything he’s heard Gwen shout at him today, and all the emotions he’s identified. Then he looks up, smiling. 

 

**

 

“You are going to… excuse me. Just, just, repeat that?” 

 

“Honestly, Merlin, it’s not complicated,” Arthur says. 

 

He’s lying on the sofa in his rooms at Kensington Palace, hands folded neatly over his stomach, most of his formal outerwear discarded. He’s down to his shirt, his trousers, and his shoes. Which are undone. He had been napping, but Merlin had come in which means a host of staff had come in, too, because Merlin has yet to perfect the art of throwing off personal assistants, body guards, and Leon. Leon is Arthur’s secretary but he tends to just manage the household, which is Merlin, Arthur, and, when they’re not at Kensington Palace or Clarence House and are at Arthur’s favoured home in London,  a small semi detached house that’s supposed to be flats but mostly houses Arthur’s staff these days, the corgis. Merlin brought his camera and has just got done taking photos of Arthur sprawled on the sofa. 

 

“Are you going to sell these and make money off me?” Arthur asks, snagging Merlin’s camera strap, pulling it off the small table. Merlin jerks forward to save it, but Arthur’s got the hang of this and has it safe in his hand. 

 

“Arthur Pendragon, I don’t care how many titles you have or what country you’re going to inherit, a man, even a prince, cannot go from ‘never made anything except toast’ to ‘planning a dinner party for an employee, an employee’s girlfriend, and a dog’ in one day,” Merlin says. 

 

“I told Gwenever I would cook for her. The personal touch,” Arthur says. “She needs some time off, do remind me to mention it to Leon?”

 

“Yes, yes,” Merlin says, waving Gwenever’s incipient mental health crisis off with surprising ease. Arthur sits up. 

 

“She really does need time off. The cracks are showing. They never show. Whatever she might say about being my employee, I’ve known her since she was four,” Arthur says. “I only pay her because she’s so bloody good at helping me work through problems. She got into such a good vein of analysing my actions and making my public profile more appealing, I thought I had better pay her. Now she says she’s my employee.”

 

“Are you currently worried she’s actually not well, or upset she doesn’t think of you as friends anymore?”

 

“Who is she seeing, anyway?” Arthur mutters.

 

He’s not paying attention to Merlin, idly running his thumb over the little wheel on the camera and spinning through photos. Merlin’s eyes widen and he jerks forwards again just as Arthur’s eyes catches on a picture. He stops and goes back. It’s Morgana, fingers gentle against Gwen’s cheek, laughing, gazing at Gwen. And Gwen’s gazing right back, warm and soft and not at all angry or worried or frustrated. Not a care in the world. Arthur sets the camera back on the antique table very carefully, and walks over to the window.

 

“Arthur, I - ” Merlin starts. 

 

“No. You keep confidences as you are given them, I have appreciated that quality in you more than once, I have no basis for complaint,” Arthur says. Merlin starts to talk again. “I must learn to cook. I have a press appearance tomorrow, and several meetings and duties. I have been scheduled to meet with the veterans at the Camelot, in the afternoon. Surely a few hours is long enough to learn something?”

 

“You’re not going to let me say anything about this, are you?” Merlin says. 

 

“No,” Arthur says, lightly as he can. “I can cook, anyway. I think I made pasta, at Saint Andrews, before Morgana abdicated as heir and I was forced to give up my Masters and join the air force. I can make pasta, and I can’t imagine sauce will break me. I will make pasta and sauce for Gwen and her girlfriend, and her dog can eat the same as the corgis.”

 

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s alright. But don’t just slip in snide comments and passive aggressive remarks about Morgana that I’m not allowed to say anything to,” Merlin says. 

 

“I liked writing about Early Modern women’s writing,” Arthur says. “I shall say what I please.”

 

“How can I comfort you, if you do that?” Merlin says, coming sneaking up and wrapping his arms around Arthur’s waist in a terribly sneaky manner. Arthur shuts his eyes and leans into Merlin. “Gwen is stressed, she doesn’t like keeping things from you. You have been asking a lot of your staff, recently. You did employ her, that changed things. You know what Morgana is like, if she wants something kept from the press she tells no one.”

 

“She told you,” Arthur says. 

 

“Not as such. I took that at the charity event last week,” Merlin says. “You were there, too. I was just photographing people in quiet moments, and caught that. It only clicked when you pondered who Gwen was seeing.”

 

“Ponder Stibbons is a great wizard,” Arthur says. 

 

“Don’t change the subject,” Merlin says. “He’s a terrible wizard, he qualified by accident.”

 

“I wish I could be like Captain Carrot. I would make a very good police man,” Arthur says .”I could teach little boys to play football.”

 

“You  _ do _ teach little boys to play football, and little girls too. The Royal Trust does a lot,” Merlin says. “And you do a lot with them, so close your mouth again.”

 

“Father would not have even made Morgana heir, had he known I would be able to fulfil the role of ‘prince’,” Arthur says. 

 

“You are an exhausting array of emotions this evening. Can I please order dinner? Also, before you kicked him out, Leon actually wanted something specific from us, he wasn’t just trailing in after me.”

 

Arthur considers Merlin’s requests, decides rather not, and turns to wrap his arms around Merlin to keep him in place, rests his head on Merlin’s bony shoulder, and wonders if Merlin walked about Kensington Palace in this same ratty t-shirt. Merlin multi-tasks. He holds onto Arthur, and uses his mobile to text the kitchens to get dinner sent up. He even picks something out for Arthur, which is rather lovely. Arthur dislikes making choices when he’s tired, which today he is. The favour he needed from Gwen was help with answering letters, which she’s usually happy to do as long as he doesn’t ask her to actually write them. She sits with him, while he does it. Tonight he did it on his own, trying to answer the letters from the children whose queerness he shares but little else. Those who use his the Royal Trust. He set it up because he knew there were young people who struggled and had so much difficulty, especially young LGBT people. He hadn’t understood that they’d want to thank him and speak to him, though. 

 

The first letters had not made it as far as him but eventually Leon had read a couple and he’d started making sure Arthur got a selection. To read, and to answer. Leon knows Arthur likes to do that. The personable prince, they call him. The people’s prince. The perfect prince. He’s none of those, not really; he doesn’t answer or even read many of the letters, and he only involves himself in the Trust when the board asks it of him, going through the official channels. It’s part of his duties: he might be heir to the throne, but really, it’s just a job. A very stressful and responsible job, sometimes. He does like to know the people he’s expected to rule, though, no matter that the job is, for the most part, figurehead. He still has power and he’s paid and kept by their taxes so he owes them at least a quick read of their letters, when they take the time. Leon ensures he gets the ones he needs to get and Arthur answers the letters from the queer kids, from the ones who want to tell him they, too, are princes, or princesses, or royals and not princesses or princes. The inbetweens, the journeyers, the ones who fall through. 

 

“Gwen taught me compassion. I owe her enough, I at the very least owe it to her to show her a little of that compassion,” Arthur says. “I will make pasta sauce, and pasta.”

 

“It will be fantastic,” Merlin says. “And if it’s not, I’ll grab a jar from Tescos on my way home. We are going home, correct?”

 

“I’ll be back in the flat as of tomorrow. I have a day off, and then the weekend I’ll be in France to attend Mithian’s engagement. Early next week is mostly informal meetings and paperwork, which I can do from the flat. Next weekend I need to be back here, and after that I’ll be spending the week with father, at Sandringham.”

 

“Why is he at Sandringham? He should be at Windsor. Will we be at Sandringham or can we stay at Anmer?” 

 

“You can do as you please.”

 

“I’m coming with you. A week, Arthur.”

 

“Yes. You are rather useless, would probably get home to find you eating those terrible noodles in a pot.”

 

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what Pot Noodles are. And, Anmer Hall?” Merlin says. 

 

“Yes, the hall not the house. I would like you to stay at the flat, while I’m here officially,” Arthur says, biting his lip. “I like being able to sneak away, like before we were married. To have our own private home still.”

 

“You flooded the building with people,” Merlin grumbles. “Yes, ok. And yes, I know you thought I might get kidnapped by some kind of evil Danish person. Why the Danish, just out of interest?”

 

“Sandi Toksvig might steal my gay, I’ve seen her. She likes gay things. Besides, I’ve read Hamlet,” Arthur says. 

 

Dinner arrives before Merlin can voice his astound at that profundity. 

 

**

 

Pasta sauce, it turns out, is not so easy to make. Arthur doesn’t extend an invitation to Gwenever until he is sure he has the time to eat at home at the flat, so he has use of a kitchen without scrutiny. It doesn’t help. Instead of having professional cooks tut over him at his dangerous attempts to work out a tin opener, he merely has two smallish corgis, still half-puppy, to trip over. He can’t work the tin opener and when he does finally manage to get a can of tomatoes open, he drops it out of surprise. The second can he falls over Bonkers and drops the tomatoes on Laddy, dying her pinkish. After that he has to take a break to kneel on the floor and pet his dogs in apology. Then it’s back to the tomatoes. He uses YouTube to help with the tin opener. 

 

Arthur does know how to use a tin opener: at university and in the air force he had people who cooked for him but he did try not to use them every day. This tin opener, however, is electric and opens the tins side on. Once he does manage to get the tomatoes out, he looks up a recipe, trying YouTube again. Cooking onions he can manage, he got that far at university. He liked his bacon with crispy onion, and so he’d learnt to do the onion. He never did get around to the bacon. He tries is now, adding bacon and garlic and then the tomatoes. He feels rather proud of that, then googles bacon to make sure he’s not going to give everyone food poisoning with raw meat. 

 

The resulting pasta sauce is… not awful. The onions are rather odd, being charred and crisp which isn’t ideal in a sauce. The bacon is oddly soggy, but now raw. There is far too much garlic. And the tomatoes taste a little burnt. It’s not terrible, though, so he decants it onto a pan of pasta (which he really can make), and leaves the bottom of the sauce stuck to the pan. That’ll be where it gets the burnt taste from. When he’s done he mixes it all together and examines his work. Merlin gets home, then, and makes a salad and sets the table and messes around with Arthur’s pasta for a while. Arthur gets out some wine and drinks half the bottle. Gwen arrives tight lipped and angry. She hasn’t brought her dog, or her girlfriend. She drinks the other half of the bottle, so they open another. 

 

“Are you two sober enough to eat dinner?” Merlin asks. 

 

“Morgana refused to come, yes?” Arthur says, getting up, too loud. He offers Gwenever an arm, and she takes it. She gives him a sharp look, so he points to Merlin’s camera, and then she gives him a glum nod. “Yes. She is rather like that. I made the pasta and the pasta sauce, and I chose the wine.”

 

“It’s wonderful wine,” Gwen says. 

 

She hasn’t got similar compliments about dinner. She laughs about it, and insults it, but seems inordinately pleased about it, and when she’s finished eating she gives him a warm hug and ruffles his hair and tells him that while he’s no cook, he’s not much of a prince, either. 

 

“More of a friend?” he suggests. 

 

“Yes,” Gwen says, with a sigh. “Why has Leon given me a month off, by the way?”

 

“I thought you might like it. As your employer, I have the right to be bossy and arbitrary and impose things on you,” Arthur says. 

 

“Can’t say I mind,” Gwen admits, emptying the last of the third bottle of wine into her glass. “She might come, if I told her you know.”

 

“She already knows I know,” Arthur says. “She knew the moment I found out. She’s scary like that. What about the dog? Bonkers and Laddy like making friends.”

 

“You called your dogs Bonkers and Laddy?” Gwen asks, then laughs. “Of course you did. I don’t have a dog. Or a bookshelf. I want both. We both have incredibly busy lives.”

 

“She abdicated, years ago. Morgana’s life belongs to noone but herself, and her choices are nothing but her own. This one is about me, not you. The dog, well, I can’t say,” Arthur says. “Tell her I miss her.”

 

“Never. Tell her yourself.”

 

“Never.”

 

“Anymore wine? No? I’ll be off, then. I might not come back to work, if you give me this time off,” Gwen says. 

 

“I know,” Arthur says. “That’s ok. Get more, yes? For your life.”

 

Gwen ruffles his hair again. When she’s gone, Merlin holds Arthur, in their bed, away from everything and everyone. It’s just them, here. Private. Their space. Built by them away from everyone and away from Arthur’s life, the one that belongs to England and her people. Their life here is so far away from that. Began way, way back, back when they graduated Saint Andrews with undergraduate degrees, both impossibly excited about postgraduate work. Merlin had finished his, and gone on to be a successful photographer, his dream. Arthur, Arthur has scars, and a fear of heights, and a country resting on his shoulders, and he is terrified of letting everyone down. Here, though, in Merlin’s arms, in their bed, that doesn’t matter. Here, he’s Arthur, and his hopes and dreams belong to no one but him and Merlin, and his life belongs to no one but him and Merlin. And his choice is to keep this. 


End file.
